Choose Design Tools for PMs

Company Context

FigmaFlow is a mid-stage B2B SaaS company that sells collaborative design and prototyping software to product, design, and engineering teams. It has 25,000 paying companies, strong adoption among startups, and growing pressure to win larger enterprise accounts where cross-functional workflows matter more than pure design capability.

Problem

The VP of Product wants to understand how product managers choose design tools and what that implies for roadmap priorities. Internal research shows that PMs are increasingly creating wireframes, commenting on prototypes, and documenting product requirements directly in design platforms. However, PM satisfaction is lower than designer satisfaction: PM NPS is 18 versus designer NPS of 46. In churn interviews, PMs say current tools are either “too complex for quick product thinking” or “too lightweight to collaborate with design and engineering.”

Your task is not to give a personal preference. Instead, treat this as a product sense problem: determine what design tools PMs prefer, why they prefer them, and how FigmaFlow should respond.

Deliverables

1. Define the key PM user segments and the jobs they are hiring design tools to do.
2. Identify the most important needs, pain points, and decision criteria behind tool preference.
3. Recommend which product opportunities FigmaFlow should prioritize for PM users and why.
4. Explain the trade-offs between building for PM simplicity versus preserving depth for designers.
5. Define how you would validate your recommendation and measure success.

Constraints

• You have one quarter for MVP delivery.
• Engineering capacity supports only 2 major workflow improvements or 1 new standalone PM feature.
• The company cannot materially degrade the core experience for professional designers.
• Sales is pushing for enterprise-friendly collaboration features, while Design leadership is worried about product bloat.